What's New?

New Patches to Address Security Advisory

On March 13, 2017, a critical severity privilege escalation was disclosed. The details of this vulnerability are documented in VMSA-2017-0004. To address this issue, install the public patch documented in KB 2149591.

System Requirements

Review this section before you install or update vRealize Operations Manager.

Sizing and Scaling

The CPU, memory, and disk requirements that meet the needs of a particular environment depend on the number and type of objects in your environment and data collected, which includes the number and type of adapters installed, the use of HA (High Availability), the duration of data retention, and the quantity of specific data points of interest. VMware updates Knowledge Base article 2093783 with the most current information about sizing and scaling. The Knowledge Base article includes overall maximums and spreadsheet calculations that provide a recommendation based on the number of objects and metrics you expect to monitor.

Deployment Formats

You can deploy vRealize Operations Manager 6.5 with the following installation formats:

VMware virtual appliance

RHEL installation package

Note: vRealize Operations Manager 6.4 was the final version of the product to support Microsoft Windows installations. If you are running windows based vRealize Operations Manager 6.4, do a fresh OVA installation for vRealize Operations Manager 6.5.

If you are deploying a vRealize Operations Manager virtual appliance, use a VMware vSphere Client to connect to a VMware vCenter Server, and deploy the virtual appliance through the vC, enter Server instance. The vRealize Operations Manager virtual appliance must be deployed on hosts that ESX/ESXi 5.1 U3 or later managed by VMware vCenter Server 5.1 Update 3 or later.

Note: Although the RHEL-based installation option is fully supported in vRealize Operations Manager 6.5, we will be deprecating this support. The future availability of the RHEL options is not guaranteed.

VMware recommends the use of our Virtual Appliance option rather than using a Linux-based option. The announcement of the End-of-Availability (EOA) for Linux-based options will be provided in a future release.

Linux Requirements

You can install and upgrade the standalone version of vRealize Operations Manager on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.5, 6.6, and 6.7 operating systems.

Applying License Keys

In addition to the existing per operating system instance (OSI) licensing, vRealize Operations Standard edition is also available on a per processor (CPU) basis. Licensing for other editions of vRealize Operations is unchanged and continues to be available on a per OSI metric.

Customers can install multiple Advanced and Enterprise editions in the same vRealize Operations Manager deployment. Customers can deploy single choice and suite licenses together. License counting for individual license keys is handled through licensing groups. You can mix editions or licensing models in one of the following ways:

Deploy vSphere with Operations Management (any edition) and vRealize Operations Standard together in one deployment.

Deploy vCloud Suite/vRealize Suite Standard, Advanced or Enterprise and vRealize Operations Advanced or Enterprise edition together in one deployment.

Note: You cannot deploy a vRealize Operations Standard edition license with either an Advanced or Enterprise license in the same deployment.

A license key assigned to a vRealize Operations Manager instance only counts towards virtual machines that are powered on. In order to be compliant, you need enough licenses to cover average powered-on VMs over trailing 365 days.

Solutions Support

In addition to the VMware solutions (vSphere, Endpoint Operations Management, and vRealize Log Insight), see the compatibility table in the Solution Exchange marketplace for many more solutions. These solutions works with Virtual Appliance single or multiple node, RHEL single or multiple node.

TLS Support

Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.0 is enabled by default in vRealize Operations Manager. TLS 1.0 is a superseded version of TLS and is enabled for vRealize Operations Manager compatibility with external products. To disable TLS 1.0, see KB 2138007

VMware Product Compatibility

This vRealize Operations Manager release has been certified as compatible with the following VMware products:

VMware vSphere 5.5 and later

vRealize Hyperic 5.8.5 and later

vRealize Infrastructure Navigator 5.8.5 and later

Browser Support

This vRealize Operations Manager release supports all current Web browsers, although only the following browsers have been tested with this release:

Note: Under New Known Issues, see the Installation and Update section for issues related to installing vRealize Operations Manager or updating the software. There are also some older known issues regarding installation or upgrading that may be relevant. Please look in the lower toggled set of notes for these issues.

New Known Issues in This Release

New Installation and Upgrade Issues

EP OPs agent upgrade from 6.3 to 6.5 might fail EP Ops agent upgrade from 6.3 to 6.5 might fail on a few agents in case of large environments. This is shown in the summary report available in the vRealize Operations user interface Workaround: Try the agent upgrade again by checking the option Install the PAK file even if it is already installed.

New General Issues

Minimum version of vRealize Business for Cloud for vRBC Launch in context with vRealize Operations Manager is 7.2.1

When using Internet Explorer 11 to access the Log Insight and Business Management tab pages and dashboards, the data is blocked When using Internet Explorer 11 to access the new Log Insight and Business Management tab pages and dashboards, the data is blocked and the page remains blank.Workaround: Use the Firefox or Chrome browser.

vRealize Operations Manager only works with the standalone mode of vRealize Business for Cloud vRealize Operations Manager only works with the standalone mode of vRealize Business for Cloud. You cannot use other deployment scenarios of vRealize Business for Cloud.Workaround: None.

When integrating vRealize Business for Cloud into vRealize Operations Manager, you should only add one vRealize Business instance. When integrating vRealize Business for Cloud into vRealize Operations Manager, you should only add one vRealize Business instance. If you add more than one instance of vRealize Business for Cloud, only data from the first instance of vRealize Business for Cloud is displayed on the Business Management tab.Workaround: Only add one vRealize Business instance.

Filters don't work in the Object List widget In the Object List widget, you are unable to use filters to locate data in the columns of the widget.Workaround: None.

The Enable Actions advanced settings in the Manage Solution dialog box is disabled The entry for Enable Actions in the advanced settings section in the Manage Solution dialog box is disabled. This is by design in this release.Workaround: Use the Enable Actions button above the Advanced Settings section.

The License is invalid message appears when you view individual VM stats When you view individual VM stats in vRealize Operations Manager, the License is invalid message might appear in the background. Workaround: Assign license key to the group and refresh license usage.

Installation and Upgrade Issues

Upgrades from 6.3 to 6.4 may fail. A PAK upgrade from 6.3 may fail due to a node in a state of waiting for analytics and not responding.Workaround: Before upgrading from 6.3 to 6.4, customers must take clusters offline.

Installation fails when $HOME directory has insufficient free space. Installation fails when the $HOME directory has insufficient free space to complete the installation. You need at least 3GB in /home/admin or set the IATEMPDIR environment variable to a directory on a disk partition with enough free disk space. Workaround: Run the following commands on each node and also append them to the /etc/bash.bashrc file:tmpdir=/path_with_free_space/tmp/iatmp mkdir -p $tmpdir IATEMPDIR=$tmpdirN/A.

Upgrade endpoint operations agent after upgrading the product. Customers must upgrade the vRealize Operations product to 6.5 before upgrading the endpoint operations agent to 6.5.Workaround: Customers should consult KB article 2138748 and KB article 2137709 before starting to upgrade.

Default policy setting may disable some containers. The default policy setting does not enable the memory "Demand" and "Allocation" containers at installation.Workaround: To enable these containers, do one of these two steps:

Disable the memory "Consuming" container in the default policy and enable memory "Demand" and "Allocation" containers.

Go to Administration -> Policies and select the "Default Policy" policy as the system default.

Inaccurate numbers of member objects in custom groups after upgrading. The preview count of the members of a custom group is inconsistent with the actual number of members if the group has any Endpoint Operations objects when you upgrade to vRealize Operations Manager 6.5. This will only occur during upgrades, not for new installations.Workaround: Customers need to use a VMware script to delete the Postgres self relationship for the Endpoint Operations objects. Contact Technical Support to obtain the script.

Object Summary blank after upgrade. Object summaries may be blank for all objects if customers do not clean the browser cache after an upgrade. Workaround: Clean the cache after upgrading.

The "Reset default content" checkbox in the "Select Software Update" section does not work correctly. Customers who are upgrading to 6.5 may find that the "Reset default content" checkbox in the "Select Software Update" section, which is a method for overriding the default content that is normally installed during an upgrade, does not work correctly.Workaround: After the upgrade completes, go to Administration > Solutions, select the vCenter Server solution, and click Modify. Pay attention to upper right corner.

vRealize Operations Manager calculates workloads for data center and custom data center objects differently from cluster objects, basing on provisioned capacity instead of entitlement Entitlement is the HA capacity of a cluster. vRealize Operations Manager suggests workload placements across clusters based on the entitlement provisioned to each cluster, which depends on whether HA is enabled or disabled on the cluster.

When HA is disabled, the entitlement is equal to the hardware provisioned capacity of the cluster. The workload is equal to (Demand + Overhead) ÷ (Provisioned Capacity).

When HA is enabled, the entitlement is equal to the sum of the cluster overhead and the currently computed HA capacity, minus the HA reservation. The workload is equal to (Demand + Overhead) ÷ (Entitlement).

Although the workload calculations for cluster objects are based on entitlement, the workload calculations for data center and custom data center objects are based on provisioned capacity. As a result, the workloads for data center and custom data center objects are not calculated correctly when HA is enabled, and do not match the workload calculations for cluster objects. Workaround: N/A.

Some object alerts not enabled after upgrading to the current release of vRealize Operations Manager. After users upgrade to version 6.3, 6.4, or 6.5 from an earlier version that had vSphere Hardening Guide alerts enabled, users will not see alerts related to distributed port groups, distributed virtual switches, or vCenter objects as these alerts are not enabled by default on upgrade.Workaround: Choose one of the following:

Enable hardening guide alerts from the adapter configuration.

Go to the policy library, edit the active policy to enable alerts for these three objects.

vRealize Operations Manager alerts trigger when the Management Pack for vCenter Configuration Manager (VCM) is integrated When the Management Pack for VCM is installed and the vSphere Hardening Guide alerts are enabled for 5.5 or 6.0 objects, some of the native compliance alerts inadvertently trigger in vRealize Operations Manager. The compliance score for a selected object displays the violated native compliance rules in the Compliance tab, which results in an incorrect compliance badge score. Workaround: Disable the native compliance alerts with these steps:

To see the native compliance alerts that are enabled in the policy, click Content > Alerts.

Click Administration > Policies > Policy Library.

Edit the policy applied to the objects and disable the native compliance alerts.

Watchdog might restart Tomcat If there are multiple agents registered to a master node directly, then Watchdog might restart Tomcat whenever there is a need, where UI runs on it. There is, however, no such implication on the product or the cluster. Workaround: Register agents to remote collector or a load balancer instead of to a Master node.

Removal of directories might affect upgrade In some cases, users have manually removed vRealize Operations Manager directories, such as directories where logs are stored. For example:/storage/log/vcops/log/vcopscli /storage/log/vcops/log/dbcli /storage/log/vcops/log/opscli The upgrade process requires vRealize Operations Manager directories to exist. If the directories are missing, the upgrade might fail by preventing vRealize Operations Manager services from starting, or in other unpredictable ways.Workaround: Do not manually remove vRealize Operations Manager directories.

It might be unclear that an update has failed If a customer reboots a node or kills some active processes during a software update, the update process continues to show that the update is still underway even though it has failed.

RHEL uninstallation does not fully remove user accounts After you uninstall vRealize Operations Manager from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), vRealize Operations Manager admin and postgres users still appear in the /etc/passwd file.Workaround: None. You may manually remove the users from the file if desired.

RHEL uninstallation does not uninstall Postgres After you uninstall Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Postgres is not uninstalled. The following are left behind:/etc/init.d/vpostgres-repl /etc/init.d/vpostgres /opt/vmware/vpostgres/9.3/.Workaround: Users must manually remove these files.

General Issues

Log Insight agent hostname reset to default localhost after upgrading The Log Insight agent hostname configuration will be reset to the default localhost after upgrading.Workaround: Edit the liagent.ini file to set the hostname to an appropriate value for your environment.

Some metrics will be duplicated with a label of “old." In version 6.4 of vRealize Operations Manager, some metrics will be duplicated and will labeled with the suffix “_old.” .Workaround: N/A.

Slight mismatch in compliance scores on the Compliance tab. When the vCM management pack is configured, there may be a slight mismatch in compliance scores. For example, the Analysis > Compliance tab may show 46 and the compliance badge may show 47 when the actual score is 46.15.Workaround: N/A.

Compliance badge score incorrect. Compliance badge score is 100 for all objects even when compliance alerts are not enabled. By default, the scores should be "?" for all objects in the system. Workaround: N/A.

Cannot create custom group using adapters that make vRealize Operations Manager REST API calls. Certain adapters do not invoke the vRealize Operations Manager APIs related to custom groups correctly. As a result, the process to create a custom group in vRealize Operations Manager with objects discovered by these adapters fails with an exception error.Workaround: The error indicates a problem with the Java language bindings of the vRealize Operations Manager REST API. This currently applies to several vRealize Operations Manager management packs. To work around the problem, see KB 2147670.

A CSV report file does not include data from a "Dashboard" data type. When you generate a report that contains a dashboard, the downloaded CSV file includes data of the "Views" data type only. Workaround: N/A.

Component health status on Self-Health dashboard may not update in a timely manner. When state of any component of vRealize Operations Manager changes then reflect in health status of respective component may not be shown on Self-Health dashboard for a long time. Workaround: N/A.

The vCenter Solution for Endpoint Operations installation fails when the vRealize Operations Manager inventory has objects discovered by previous versions of the vCenter Solution for Endpoint Operations If you have any object collected from earlier version of the vCenter Solution for Endpoint Operations, then ensure that the objects are removed before you install or upgrade to the latest version of the vCenter Solution for Endpoint Operations.Workaround:

Stop the collection of all objects or resources that are discovered by the earlier vCenter Solution for Endpoint Operations.

Delete all the stopped objects.

Install the latest vCenter Solution for Endpoint Operations.

Note: By removing the objects, you will lose historical data from the vCenter Solution for Endpoint Operations and vCenter application objects history.

Generated reports may be blank If you log in to vRealize Operations Manager with vCenter Server credentials and generate a report, the generated report is always blank.Workaround: None.

Endpoint Operations Management does not support IPv6 Endpoint Operations Management does not support IPv6Workaround: N/A.

VVOL datastores are masked If a VM, host, cluster, datacenter, or vCenter Server object with VVOL datastores is selected, an incorrect datastore count appears on the Environment Objects Map or the Troubleshooting All Metrics page. And if a VM is deployed on a VVOL datastore, raw or derived metrics may be missing.Workaround: None. The VVOL datastores are masked because vRealize Operations Manager does not yet implement the VVOL datastore metrics. However, the VVOL datastores are included in the count.

Rebalance Container action continues to recommend the same rebalance plan after failure When a Rebalance Container action fails, and vCenter Server indicates that the operation is not allowed in the current state, the rebalance container action recommends the same rebalance plan. Workaround: Correct the problem in your environment, then attempt to run the Rebalance Container action again.

Maintenance schedules no longer assigned after upgrade Maintenance schedules are disassociated from a policy after an upgrade from version 6.0 to later versions. Workaround: Update the policy manually after an upgrade. For more information about managing policies, see Managing and Administering Policies for vRealize Operations Manager.

Host Maintenance mode behavior has changed in vRealize Operations Manager 6.x. Now when a vCenter host is in Maintenance mode, the system does not disable the data collection icons from the host. Instead, in vRealize Operations Manager 6.x, maintenance is governed by policies and associated with custom groups.Workaround: You can create a custom group for hosts that are in maintenance mode and apply whatever policy you want for them, including stop collection of all metrics.

Deploying virtual machines to a failover host is not allowed After you configure a failover host in a cluster and select the failover host in the navigation tree, then go to Analysis > Capacity Remaining, create a custom profile for virtual machines, and enable the custom profile for all policies, you can view the number of virtual machines that will fit on the host. Although the custom profile indicates that a number of virtual machines will fit on the host, you cannot power-on virtual machines deployed in failover hosts.Workaround: None

Symptom set details cannot be retrieved for some alerts When an alert triggers based on a set of population-based symptom sets, and one or more symptom set could not be evaluated due to lack of enough resources to evaluate the population condition, an error occurs. The error message indicates that the complete symptom set details for that alert cannot be retrieved for that particular symptom set. This error only occurs on population-based alerts and only if enough resources were not available to evaluate the condition.Workaround: None

Alert Details summary links below the top link do not link to objects When you view the alert details for an alert that has received symptoms from many objects, such as an alert on a host that has symptoms from virtual machine child objects, and then you expand the drop-down arrow for the alert cause, you can see the list of symptoms. Because the alert is generated with symptoms received from many objects, you see a list of links to those objects with relevant symptom descriptions. The links to the objects located below the first object do not work. This problem is relevant for all browsers, except for Internet Explorer.Workaround: Manually find the object you need. For example, use the global search text box in the top toolbar to search for the object.

Virtual Machines will not Power On, even though vRealize Operations Manager reports capacity remaining In cases where one virtual machine is larger than the others in the cluster, the size discrepancy from this single virtual machine can result in vRealize Operations Manager reporting that there is capacity and time remaining, yet Admission control in vSphere will not allow the virtual machines to be powered on.Workaround: Determine the slot size and then increase the buffer threshold using policies. See KB 2033248 for more information about this issue and how to manually calculate the slot size.

Workload placement might fail if the ESXi host version is missing If vCenter Server fails to provide the ESXi host version number to the vCenter Server properties collector in the vCenter Adapter, a compatibility problem occurs, which can cause the Rebalance Container action and the workload placement to fail. This failure might persist until the vCenter Adapter establishes a new connection to the vCenter Server instance. Workaround: Restart the vCenter adapter instance. In the vSphere Web Client, view the summary and version information for the ESXi host machines.

Some symptoms for metrics are not canceled for objects in an unknown or no-data-received state When vRealize Operations Manager stops collecting new values for a metric, vRealize Operations Manager cancels symptoms when the last collected value of a metric becomes stale. In some cases, a symptom is not canceled. For example:

When an adapter is stopped, vRealize Operations Manager stops processing its objects, including the cancellation of stale symptoms.

When a vCenter Server instance is deleted and the adapter instance is not deleted, vRealize Operations Manager stops processing its objects, including the cancellation of stale symptoms.

vRealize Operations Manager cancels stale symptoms for metrics, but does not cancel symptoms for properties or events, such as faults.Workaround: None

The configuration for the content pack for Log Insight is overwritten When you change the configuration details in the loginsight-agent file or from the user interface of vRealize Operations Manager, the configuration for the content pack for Log Insight is modified or overwritten. The ports from 9000 to 514 might be reset and the protocol changes to syslog instead of cfapi. Workaround: Disable the remote logging option from the vRealize Operations Manager user interface before you modify the loginsight-agent file. Do not save the changes again from the user interface when you use the content pack for Log Insight.

The Text Display widget cannot display some Web sites in HTML mode If a Text Display widget is configured with the View Mode set to HTML, then the URL should use HTTPS protocol. The functionality of the Text Display widget with Web sites that use HTTP depends on the individual settings of the Web sites.Workaround: None

Projects and workload placement do not acknowledge disk I/O and network I/O Projects do not impact disk I/O and network I/O metrics. The placement plan might include placing virtual machines on hosts with high disk I/O or network I/O workload, or datastores with high disk I/O workload.Workaround: None

When you do a rebalance on a container with hosts of different capacities, the balance might not be achieved in terms of usage and demand percent When you do a rebalance on a container, host candidates with larger absolute available capacity is considered first to place virtual machines. As a result, when hosts are of different capacities, balance may not be achieved in terms of usage and demand percent.Workaround: None

Cluster Management Issues

Cannot add nodes that are on earlier version than cluster Once you have updated a cluster to vRealize Operations Manager 6.2.1 or later, you cannot add a node that is on an earlier release version.Workaround: None.

User Interface Issues

The filter menus in Policies workspace step Collect Metrics and Properties do not work correctly When you deselect an option from the State, KPI, or DT drop-down menus, the filter hides all attributes no matter of their settings.Workaround: Save and reopen the policy.

A PDF report file might not include all data from a widget that has a scrollbar When you generate a report that contains a custom dashboard with a widget that has a scrollbar, the downloaded PDF file might not include all data of the widget.Workaround: Increase the height of the widget in the dashboard to fit all the data.

Endpoint Operations Management Agent Issues

Blank password not accepted for Postgres user The embedded Postgres database for a vCenter Server appliance is shipped without a default password for the postgres user. If you do not set the password in the vcdb.properties file, you are unable to log in as the Postgres user because the Endpoint Operations Management agent will not allow you to log in with a blank password. You might experience this problem if you are trying to monitor the Postgres database after importing the Endpoint Operations Management Adapter. Workaround: Use the Postgres DB credentials stored in /etc/vmware-vpx/vcdb.properties for the Virtual Appliance. It is not necessary to enter the default (blank) Postgres password.

vRealize Operations Manager Monitoring a Large Scale Environment is not Performing as Expected If you have a large scale vRealize Operations Manager monitored environment, you may experience one or more of the following issues:

The user interface is responding slowly

Metrics are slow to be displayed

Workaround: Determine the areas of the environment in which the latency is greater than 20 milliseconds and install a remote collector in those areas.